Letter to the editor | Rehabilitation appears hopeless

A blood libel is any false and malicious (libelous) accusation of a particularly heinous (bloody or equally bad) crime.

Examples include accusations that Jews make matzos from the blood of Gentile children, Christians set the great fire of Rome, gypsies steal children, and the United States developed the AIDS virus.

On Nov. 9, 2011, alumni trustees Joel Myers, Marianne Alexander and Jesse Arnelle made themselves parties to the blood libel that Penn State tolerated and enabled Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse of children to protect its football program.

Myers, unlike the other alumni trustees who were or will be voted out, began to earn a second chance when he challenged President Rodney Erickson’s acceptance of the NCAA sanctions.

He also pointed out that the board of trustees never voted to ratify the Freeh report’s findings of guilt against Penn State.

This showed, in turn, that board leaders Karen Peetz and Kenneth Frazier violated the board’s standing orders by affirming the report on the university’s behalf.

Myers, however, abandoned his honorable and rehabilitative actions when the board’s power brokers appointed him to the executive committee. If he values his membership on the board’s inner circle above the well-being of Penn State, he belongs in the business and Industry faction with Peetz and Frazier.

The alumni should therefore fire him in April so that faction can appoint him to its own ranks for the last term for which he is eligible.